Business Strategy and Outlook
| Greggory Warren, CFA |A confluence of several issues--poor relative active investment performance, the growth and acceptance of low-cost index-based products, and the expanding power of the retail-advised channel--has made it increasingly difficult for asset managers running predominantly active portfolios to generate organic growth, leaving them more dependent on market gains to drive assets under management higher. While we still believe there will always be room for active management, we believe the advantage when it comes to getting placement on platforms will go to asset managers with greater scale, established brands, solid long-term performance, and reasonable fees.